A South Carolina woman is suing Mattel over the misprinted URL on Wicked movie toy packaging discovered last month. The URL led to a shall we say “highly NSFW”site, Wicked.com, rather than WickedMovie.com, the blockbuster’s official page.
Word of the “someone at Mattel is surely getting fired” mistake spread quickly as consumers shared pictures online of the movie tie-in products with the naughty website’s address printed on the back. Many only noticed the error when they went to the site — presumably with young Wicked fans nearby — and were asked if they were 18 or older. Social media comments included, “That’s an insane oversight, someone getting fired lol.”
In a twist, Wicked.com hosts NSFW movie parodies — seriously, you can’t make this stuff up. (No word yet if there are any naughty Wicked spoofs on the site, but honestly, we didn’t check.)
Naturally, Mattel pulled the product from the shelves as soon as the company found out, and released a statement urging anyone who bought the toy not to navigate to the site. Mattel said they “deeply regret this unfortunate error and are taking immediate action to remedy this.” For consumers already in possession of the toy, the company advised destroying the packaging or obscuring the offending URL with ink. But according to court documents, for one South Carolina family at least, that message came too late.
Both mother and daughter were “horrified” by what they saw
The class action suit filed against Mattel says that the situation caused “emotional distress” for the woman and her daughter after her daughter followed the URL on her mother’s iPhone and then showed her mother what she saw. The legal action says if she had known what was on the packaging, she would have never bought the product, and Mattel owes her a refund.
“These scenes were hardcore, full on nude pornographic images depicting actual intercourse,” the suit says. It added that the “plaintiff seeks to recover damages because the products are adulterated, worthless, and unfit for its intended and advertised age-appropriate audience.”
All joking aside, we feel for the little girl and her mother — that must have been quite the mother-daughter talk, and no kid should see that stuff, especially when they’re expecting a site based on a family movie and a toy.
But while the product is “worthless” to that family, and likely others, they still have value to some people: Since the error was pointed out, spicy “misprint” packages have resold for as much as $250 online, Vanity Fair reported.
Wicked is a big-screen adaptation of the hit Broadway show starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, and the URL mistake has not seemingly affected the movie’s box office, which, as of this report, has grossed more than $360 million worldwide.
Referring to the URL mishap, Michael Moses, an exec at Universal, Wicked‘s production company, told Variety, “I don’t think that all press is good press. I always categorize incidents between what might actually damage the desire to see the movie and what might not. I think that was an example of one that’s an anecdote more than a threat.”